Last week Comscore released a study called Women on the Web – How Women are Shaping the Internet. You can find the full report here.

Among the summary findings:

·Women ARE the digital mainstream – They are more engaged and involved online and can be found in less and less of the traditional women’s online properties.

·Social networking is central to women’s Internet experience – Social networking is not only popular among women, not a big surprise, it’s become a driver into other more traditionally male online activities such as video, photo sharing and gaming.

·Divas drive the dollars – Women are key drivers of online buying. They spend more and transact more than men and digital coupon clipping and bargain shopping is seen as an up and coming trend

·Women Tweet like Venus, Men like Mars – Both genders are active on Twitter and Women marginally outnumber men, but motivations differ. Women tend to follow celebrities as well as businesses to find sales or promotions

·What’s left for us guys? Sports, Automotive and Online Trading sites. I guess they didn’t have a category for beer and recliners. Mobile, however is a category that is still Male dominated, presumably because it involved more perceived technical expertise: (is that a cell phone in your pocket….?)

What’s does this mean for us and our clients?

We need to think harder about our assumptions that Technology = Male. It’s a prejudice that we continue to carry based on dated cultural stereotypes. Instead, let’s look at the cultural stereotypes of community building, sharing and managing that we traditionally ascribe to Women. What this study shows is that if we can align our strategies to create online experiences that reflect these themes we’ll do a better job of reaching an empowered audience that is already waiting for us.